Engineering career

[TrooperFarva]

Of course formulas are math based. My point is many engineers don't use the formulas they learned.

I once had an engineer tell me he used calculas once in 5 years and that was to make the problem fun. He said engineering is the 3 Bs;

Build it
Break it
Beef it up

That is not engineering. That's guesswork. Do you really think aircraft manufacturers slap a design together, see if it breaks, and then if it does, make it stronger? The whole purpose of engineering is to take the guesswork out of design, to quantify all the parameters, so that you know the design works.

I am a registered professional mechanical engineer. I learned on a slide rule. My first computer was an Apple IIE. Obviously I have been around a while. I use higher math and formulas every day.

edit: if you build it right the first time it won't break.

That's exactly right.

Spoken by someone who is not a manufacturing engineer. You want things to break. My dad's an engineer for Steelcase furniture. Hann almsot overtook them as the #1 seller a few years back because Hann was selling stuff cheaper that was less quality. But it still lasted for years. Not everyone wants their furniture to last a lifetime becasue styles and features change. The bigget bright spot for Steelcase is their cheapest line.

First off, everything you say is "spoken by someone who is not a manufacturing engineer," so don't bother trying to disclude the opinion of someone with actual experience.

Secondly, as etoncrow mentions below, planned obsolesence is completely different from your previously mentioned design philosophy of "Build It, Break It, Beef It Up."

You are absolutely correct; I am not a manufacturing engineer. I was responding to your "build it, break it, beef it up". What you are saying now is not the same thing; rather, it is nearly the opposite...engineered obsolescence.

As I said before, "Build It, Break It, Beef It Up" is not engineering, it is guesswork. I've worked on Department of Defense contracts. When you're designing equipment that carries a price tag in the millions, you can't just half-ass a design together, and see if it breaks.

 

[Lammchop93]

Thanks for all the great info guys. Next year (junior year), I have to take Algebra II for a school standard, and I will be taking Electronic Engineering.

So far classes I've completed that I think will help are:
Honors Biology
Chemistry
Algebra I
Geometry

I have passed all these with A's and B's.


My school offers a computer programming class, but it is only HTML and website making. So that problably won't help much. I have had friends take the class and every single one had to drop out becaus the teacher does not teach. He just hands out guidelines.

 

[etoncrow]

If you have a modicum of talent in logic and can read you can teach yourself computer programming

 

[tycobb73]

That is not engineering. That's guesswork. Do you really think aircraft manufacturers slap a design together, see if it breaks, and then if it does, make it stronger?


QUOTE]

No, computer modeling does.

 

[TrooperFarva]

That is not engineering. That's guesswork. Do you really think aircraft manufacturers slap a design together, see if it breaks, and then if it does, make it stronger?

No, computer modeling does.

A computer is a tool, like a calculator. It's not going to just spit out some design. And long before powerful computers ever existed, airplanes were still engineered.

Please stop flaunting how little you know about engineering. The OP asked a serious question.

 

[etoncrow]

A computer is a tool, like a calculator. It's not going to just spit out some design. And long before powerful computers ever existed, airplanes were still engineered.

+1 The engineering that put men on the moon was completed with aid of slide rules.

 

[aborgman]

That's total misinformation. I use math, including advanced math, every day as an engineer.

...and in ten years working as an electrical/computer engineer, I've seldom used math outside boolean algebra or basic algebra.

For the six years I worked as a design enginner on the Pentium 4 at Intel, I never used anything other than boolean algebra.

It really depends on the field.

 

[aborgman]

+1 The engineering that put men on the moon was completed with aid of slide rules.

...and integral tables, and...

Wait - you know what? Slide rules, log tables, integral tables, calculators, computers...

They're all just tools so us engineers don't HAVE to do the math. You still have to understand it though, so you know if the answers you're getting are in the realm of reality.

 

[TrooperFarva]

It really depends on the field.

True, it does depend on the field. But a blanket statement such as "very little math is used in engineering" is nonsense.

 

[aborgman]

True, it does depend on the field. But a blanket statement such as "very little math is used in engineering" is nonsense.

Sure.

I know engineers who might as well be mathematics professors, and I know engineers that haven't done a lick of calculus in 30 years.

I would certainly say that in most forms of engineering today, a lot of the mathematical detail is obscured and handled by machines to aid the design process.

I mean - I can do all the nasty calculus to model a FET, but SPICE can do it faster and more accurately to the real world.

My friend who is a Nuke Eng, can do all those ugly triple ring integrals and crap for calculating radiation dosing - but it's a lot easier to just simulate it. Etc.

 

[TrooperFarva]

Sure.

I know engineers who might as well be mathematics professors, and I know engineers that haven't done a lick of calculus in 30 years.

I would certainly say that in most forms of engineering today, a lot of the mathematical detail is obscured and handled by machines to aid the design process.

I mean - I can do all the nasty calculus to model a FET, but SPICE can do it faster and more accurately to the real world.

My friend who is a Nuke Eng, can do all those ugly triple ring integrals and crap for calculating radiation dosing - but it's a lot easier to just simulate it. Etc.

Certainly. And as you eluded to before, the tools are useless if you don't know how to use them, and you don't understand the concepts, to know what kind of output to expect.

Myself, I do a lot of tweaking of control loops in the field, and I could model each one, but I know the math well enough that I can set the parameters faster than modeling.

 

[fdeck]

I mean - I can do all the nasty calculus to model a FET, but SPICE can do it faster and more accurately to the real world.

What's the equivalent input current noise of a PN4416 JFET?

 

[fdeck]

Of course formulas are math based. My point is many engineers don't use the formulas they learned.

I once had an engineer tell me he used calculas once in 5 years and that was to make the problem fun. He said engineering is the 3 Bs;

Build it
Break it
Beef it up

That engineer may have had a successful career, but he belongs to a dying breed.

As an engineering manager, it's hard for me to find a use for an engineer whose skills are limited to trial-and-error design. The reason is that designs are getting too complex and interconnected. If 20 subsystems each have a 10% chance of failure, the system has a roughly 90% chance of failure. In other words, virtually guaranteed failure. Revising designs can be extremely costly. One revision could have a ripple effect throughout a system. If a system can't function at a basic level, then all testing has to be delayed. Some designs, such as molded parts, have large expenses associated with design changes.

One of my main leadership activities as a manager is to encourage the use of quantitative tools for evaluating the merit of designs before they are prototyped. Even the old-timers are enthusiastic about this change. We're all sick and tired of revising weak designs while everybody waits, and we've all seen at least one massively delayed project in our careers.

Now, I know that not all engineers use their math. Still, I think it is worth learning. When working a math problem, one or two weak links mean that the answer is wrong. Also, engineers who were more comfortable with math also seem to be the ones who make the most effective use of quantitative tools such as finite element modeling and tolerance analysis.

Interestingly, I have a friend who teaches high school calculus using computer modeling tools. As an old-timer who loves equations, I was horrified when he told me this, but he has convinced me of his methods.

 

[bigblondeafro87]

I'm a mechanical engineering major and a jazz studies minor at Rowan University, and while it is a lot of work I hear it will pay off in the end biiiig time.

This semester I'm taking my last math course Mathematics for Engineering Analysis, which is basically Calc 4. The teachers flat out tell that we won't use the majority of the math, but that we are learning it for the thought process.

If you understand how to do physics and are reasonably proficient at math, I'd say go for it.

 

[Raven2k360]

Thanks for all the great info guys. Next year (junior year), I have to take Algebra II for a school standard, and I will be taking Electronic Engineering.

So far classes I've completed that I think will help are:
Honors Biology
Chemistry
Algebra I
Geometry

I have passed all these with A's and B's.


My school offers a computer programming class, but it is only HTML and website making. So that problably won't help much. I have had friends take the class and every single one had to drop out becaus the teacher does not teach. He just hands out guidelines.

Actually, HTML would be helpful. Not only is it a prerequisite for java, but since taking my C/C++ class, I've noticed parallels to HTML coding. Granted, the syntax is different, but there are still parallels that you can draw from which will help in making the the coding easier to understand.

 

[Simo98]

Sure, you may not have to use calculus as an engineer, but you need to know it, if nothing else than to pass the exams and get your degree.

I didn't have to use multiplication my entire senior year, nor addition, i had a calculator at my disposal that could do it for me, but knowing how to multiply, and what my calculator was spitting out when i type in 3x7 sure made it easier.

 

[etoncrow]

I do not know if anyone else had this experience but I will share it. We were told at an assembly of freshmen engineering students to look at the person to the left and the person to the right; only one of us was still going to be there in 4 years. I did not understand why we had so much home work. I would work hours on just one problem in one class. And why study all this math; six semesters of thermodynamics plus six semesters of higher mathematics. After I graduated and found myself in the work force I realized what was going on. They were teaching us not only a way of thinking and problem solving but also how to stay focused and accomplish it under pressure. If you could not cut it you were weeded out. Only one third of the class finished; less in the mechanical and electrical disciplines. There was wisdom in what seemed like madness at the time.

 

[Muusers]

At the TU Delft, where I study, about 40% of all freshmen make it to graduation in mech. eng.. So far I'm still going strong

 

[KeithBMI]

+1 The engineering that put men on the moon was completed with aid of slide rules.

...and a whole bunch of redundant systems.

 

[etoncrow]

...and a whole bunch of redundant systems.

I forgot to mention all the pocket protectors and black horn rimmed glasses too